The meat market is the family's only store today. Guy Dickens ran the operation with the help of family for about 12 years. He died in 1980.

"I took over in 1970 and spent 43 years running it night and day," Brad Dickens Jr. said.

By that point, he had spent most of his life working at the store. There were two exceptions. Dickens earned a degree in industrial management from Texas A&M University, and he served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, from 1968 to 1969.

Dickens, a cancer survivor, said he enjoyed every aspect of running the family business.

"I loved the people; I loved the business," he said. "I loved impressing people with the quality of stuff I could do. 'Thank you' made my life."

Dickens has two daughters, a son and one granddaughter, but they have not chosen to go into the family business. So, he found a protégé in longtime employee Steve Free, now president of Guy's Meat Market.

Free's history with the business began 40 years ago when he was 16. He started by sweeping floors and continued working there summers while earning a biology degree from the University of Texas.

"I planned on being a dentist, but I didn't make it into dental school," Free said. "Mr. Dickens took me under his wing."

Later, Dickens gave Free part of the business.

As far as Free is concerned, it's the quality of the product and the service that has kept Guy's in business.

"We try to make sure it's just right," he said. "And we talk to our customers and get to know them."

Sandler said she has great respect for the store's staff, and she considers Dickens a "mensch," a Yiddish word for a person of integrity and honor.

"I love him; he's like my little boy," she said. "When I was younger, I was always running my kids to activities. I was up to my eyeballs in things to do. Many a time on his way home from the store, Brad would drop off what I didn't have time to pick up. That's Brad for you."

Sandler said she appreciates Free, too.

"I can pick up the telephone and tell Steve what I need. He knows what I want and I want it. Anything I want, I can get it, and it's done the right way."

Customer Mary Williams has been shopping at Guy's Meat Market for about 45 years.

"I was a career woman," the MacGregor-area resident said. "I'm from a small Texas town. It was like stepping back in time to when you knew the butcher, and the butcher knew you.

"When you go into Guy's, the hamburger you could buy 40 years ago is the same today," she said. "You can take your children, and now the grandchildren, and explain to them about the quality of the meat. It's an extension of being home."